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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    Without genuine normative independence from the religious... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→It is possible for a deity in traditional African religion to issue commands that practitioners consider unethical.

    Without genuine normative independence from the religious tradition, human moral censure of deities reflects internal ritual critique, not external ethical judgment of divine commands.

    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Moral frameworks developed within religious traditions inherit their foundational assumptions, making internal critique circular rather than truly external.
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    • 2.Genuine ethical independence requires adopting evaluative standards genuinely external to the system being judged, not merely reformist positions within it.
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    • 3.Without such independence, apparent moral censure of divine commands reduces to disputes about proper ritual interpretation or doctrinal consistency.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.All moral reasoning develops within some tradition; complete independence is impossible, making the standard incoherently demanding rather than illuminating.
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    • 2.Critical distance from one's formative tradition is achievable through rational reflection without requiring wholesale rejection of its fundamental premises.
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    • 3.Even tradition-internal critique can constitute genuine ethical judgment when it challenges core practices based on coherent moral principles held across contexts.
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    Key Terms

    External ethical judgment(as used in ethics)
    Evaluating whether something is right or wrong using standards and reasoning that come from outside the system being judged.
    Internal ritual critique(as used in philosophy of religion)
    Criticism that stays within a system's own rules and practices, rather than judging the system by outside standards.
    Moral censure(The statement asks whether we blame genetic enhancements the same way we do (or don't blame) private tutoring.)
    Disapproval or blame from an ethical standpoint—treating something as morally wrong or bad.
    Normative independence(as used in ethics)
    The ability to judge right and wrong based on your own reasoning, separate from what a particular authority or tradition tells you to believe.
    divine commands(Second premise of moral arguments for God's existence)
    One salient option among the variety of ways in which moral features may depend on God, cited as an example of how God might explain objective moral facts
    normative(in ethics and philosophy)
    Relating to how things should be or what people ought to do, rather than just describing how things actually are.

    Connections

    2 topics

    Against an aspect of God1 linkedJustice & Punishment1 linked

    Related

    All moral reasoning develops within some tradition; complete independence is imp...Critical distance from one's formative tradition is achievable through rational ...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    Even tradition-internal critique can constitute genuine ethical judgment when it...
    Genuine ethical independence requires adopting evaluative standards genuinely ex...
    +3 moreShow less
    It is possible for a deity in traditional African religion to issue commands tha...Moral frameworks developed within religious traditions inherit their foundationa...Without such independence, apparent moral censure of divine commands reduces to ...